


Hark, Hark! Manslayer

by Kayndred



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Demon Sam, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Canon-Typical Violence, Character building, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2013-03-02
Packaged: 2017-12-04 01:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/705084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayndred/pseuds/Kayndred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth<br/>[...] and touched the face of God."</p><p>In which Sam is one of The Forgotten Children, Cas is an angel of special caliber, Dean works in rehabilitating Chaotic Neutral entities, and they all play a part in keeping the balance of the universe exactly where it should be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hark, Hark! Manslayer

**Author's Note:**

> The Sastiel fic to go with the Destiel fic that I posted recently. Again, no porn here, although I do dive into some demon-flavored violence, because, why not? A bit more world building, because that is a thing that I like to do apparently. 
> 
> Not a gift this time, but still - take this!

**B** efore the schism, before humanity, before time, he wasn't 'good'. He wasn't evil either. He'd been balance, a single stone on the scales of the universe, as neutral as the sky.

And then there was the Fall, and the Great Divide, and he wasn't just neutral anymore he was 'chaotic' as well, too wild and tether-less and free range to fly with those of the Holy Host, not dark enough to complete the decent into the mire of the Unclean.

A dark grey - the darkest grey - but grey nonetheless.

He watched the spiritual wars rage and subside, watched the people of the Earth stumble blindly through their revolutions, watched the other outcast entities turn on each other and themselves or get eaten alive by the power rift that had ripped their souls apart. 

Watched them burn at the stake and be buried in mass graves, watched them cannibalize and struggle and beat each other bloody and broken. 

And still he remained, a heavy grey stain on the Earth, his existence passed over and reduced to uselessness and repetition, wishing for the end.

He lets himself sink into insanity and never really pulls himself back.

The body squirms beneath him, thrashing against his grip and his ministrations but it's useless - he is far too old to be bested by something as weak as a human.

He sinks low, body sloshing forward, one set of arms pinning the man's shoulders and another prying his mouth open. From the middle of his torso unfold a third pair, and it is this set, with its long, spidery fingered hands, that move toward his captive's teeth.

"Ch, ch!" He tuts, twisting the man's jaws viciously. He can feel the muscles strain and creak. "Don't squirm, don't fight, shush." The man whimpers beneath him, eyes wide and watering, and he smiles benevolently down at him before gripping one of the left molars and ripping it clean from the red stained flesh of the man's gums. The man screams, his wet sobs fading into gurgling as he struggled not to drown in his own blood. 

"I told you not to struggle." His voice is a sibilant hiss, long tongue reaching out to lap at the blood dribbling from the raw slash of his victim's mouth, before he thrusts the appendage in to the back of the human's throat, drawing the blood pooling there into himself. 

It's so sweet, so pure, this - the blood and the teeth and the tang of sweat-fear on the human's skin. He smoothes the pain, melds it with the fear and the desperation and the resignation, weaves it into something thick and heady and distracting enough to make him tune out the man's agonized cries as he pries the rest of his teeth from him. 

When the man's mouth is smooth and blood slathered, free of obstruction, he leans down to meet the man's lips with his own, tongue delving in quick, strong strokes to lap up the blood and run over the soft and tender flesh of his abused gums. The man whimpers when the muscle’s pointed tip slides sharply into a pit of open and oozing skin, and he shivers in response.

Sated and once more without the burn of desperation under his skin, he tucks his limbs into himself and fades away into the shadows, exiting the first plane without pause, his victim left a bleeding, toothless mess on the floor of a warehouse.  

.x.

" **N** o, I'm not fucking joking - I know  _exactly_  which  _oblitus filii_ are registered for the _capio_ seal, and your lists are off. Call me back when you've gotten your shit together." 

The phone slams back into the cradle with a sharp plastic-on-plastic snap, the tiny office ringing with harsh tension as Dean leans back in his chair and runs his hands over his face. The Bureau of Demonic Registration, Categorization, Regulation and Restriction is, and probably always would be, a thorn in the side of the rehabilitation movement, and they never stopped trying to force the hospitals and recovery houses into releasing their dependents for higher and more damaging sealing.

Dean, never one to give ground easily, digs his heels in and fights them at every turn. He's seen the victims of their liberal sealing, the ones barely more than spiritual shadows with great, hungry pits where their souls might be.

He blatantly refuses to allow any of the _oblitus filii_ in the Winchester and Singer Rehabilitation Home, West Coast branch - a division of the Grand Holy Practices Rehabilitation Hospitals - to fall into their clutches and be turned into mindless zombies or worse.  

There's a tapping on his door - once, twice, thrice - and then a pause, and then one more nock. "Come in," he calls, rubbing ineffectively at the headache sprouting up behind his eyes. He's going to have to hit up the Aleve like some sort of drug addict, he's sure.

The door swings open with barely a whisper, and his visitor's footsteps are equally as quiet. The silence is disturbing, although he isn't surprised when he finally looks at the man seated across from him.

Castiel sits, back ramrod straight and still in the semi-comfortable guest chair, his eyes staring pointedly at Dean and the neat stacks of documentation and file folders on his desk. His gaze is as penetrating as it is unnerving, and there's only so long that Dean can sit in silence with it. 

"What's up Cas?" He asks, straightening out. "Finished with the search?" 

"No." His voice is like gravel, as though he's been yelling for a long time, although he seriously doubts that Cas has raised his voice at anymore than twice in his life. "I am here to ask if you have reviewed my request for a more expedient course of action."

Dean frowns. "Yes. I saw it. I don't understand why you want to move so quickly." He's known Cas for as long as he's been the head of the WSRH, and Castiel has always been cautious when moving to confront a possible patient. It is almost unprecedented that he submits a form motioning for them to strike hard and fast on a being normally pursued by the Demonic Crime Investigators.

"There has been another attack." Castiel replies. "On a man, in the warehouse district." His gaze shifts to look beyond the view of Dean's dingy single-pane window, his stare a mile long. "His teeth were stolen and his life-force drained. He was escorted to a nearby hospital by an electrician coming in to adjust the power in the building."

"That's the fourth one this month in that district." Dean says, spinning to glare at the large map pinned up on the wall behind his desk. A line of black pins tracks its way across the state, from one city to the next, until landing flatly on the California coast, right in the lap of Dean's jurisdiction. Since the first attack almost five months previous in an outlaying district there had been a total of nineteen - now twenty.

"Also," Castiel says, drawing Dean out of his thoughts, "a woman reported that 'a strange man' aided her with her groceries." He sounds confused, and when Dean swivels around he's frowning at his hands. 

"So?" What does that have to do with anything?

"It is the twelfth time that a standard human has reported being assisted by 'a strange man' or a person of unusual features on the same night that as one of these attacks." He replies, looking back up at Dean. His eyes are serious and unflinching in the face of Dean's speculation, and again Dean is reminded that Castiel is far more than simply human. He arches a brow to prompt Cas into continuing. 

The other man sighs. "In the Retrieval Corps we are trained to observe all aspects of a case as prevalent to the investigation and apprehension of those beings that have fallen into despair after the Spiritual Rift." Despair, Dean thinks, is pretty mild for what they are dealing with. "In accordance with this aspect of my training I have scanned and interviewed people from around the area of each attack. In each area, if an attack has ranked higher than a five on the Enoch Scale, a minor deed of serviceable good has been done." He pauses and looks at Dean significantly. "All of these deeds have been perpetuated by 'a strange man' or 'a person of unusual features'." 

"So you think that, what, the attacker has someone acting as a balance?" It wouldn't have been the first time a dark oblitus filii had paired off with a lighter one to satisfy the need for balance that burned in their cores. Unusual, then but not unheard of.

"No." Cas' voice is sharp and certain. "There is only one."

"And you're sure because...?" 

Castiel huffs. "As a standard human you would not understand it in the fundamental way I do - it is easiest to say that I can 'hear' that there is only one attacker." 

The silence after that statement is stifling and disbelieving because - what? Dean knew that angels were weird, that Cas is definitely no exception, but it is still startling and strangely unnerving to be reminded that while Dean could speculate all he wanted, Cas could simply 'hear' if there was more than one psycho oblitus filii running around.

"You hear it." 

"Yes."

Dean stares, more than a little confused, and disregards it as he does many of the idiosyncrasies that come from his angelic co-workers. There's really only so much weird a man should have on his plate in one day, and he's pretty sure he's over his quota simply by working at the WSRH.

There's really no telling what Cas has in mind, despite their prolonged acquaintance and fully functioning work relationship. Castiel has always been very clearly, very obviously, angelic - his interest in human affairs is full of wonder and joy, but the finer points of the whole 'free will' shebang often elude him. The only thing he seems to understand fully is where angelic, demonic, and OF law overlap with human existence and human law. 

Resigned, Dean turns and rummages through his drawers, withdrawing the fat APPROVAL stamp and its onyx magic ink. The form he wants is already at the top of the pile - no doubt the lead angel's handiwork - so all he does is slap the rubber stamp down on its designated box on the paper, give the confirmation chant, and then push the form back toward Castiel.

"You know the drill - leave it with Jo for filing and notary and then get going before I change my mind." There's a prickle of apprehension growing under his skin, and Dean can't help but think that this is the first step toward something strange. He pushes it out of the way though, focusing instead on the now standing angel.

Cas doesn't smile - Dean thinks it's sort of hard for him too, what with having to navigate human face muscles to make something not scowly -   but his shoulders relax a great deal and his eyes are warm and almost,  what, excited maybe, when he takes the paper and nods before leaving Dean's office just as quietly as he'd entered.

The fuzzy wariness in Dean's mind doesn't go away, but it is content to stay contained and ignored as he putters around with his paperwork. 

.x.

**T** he Plane of Third Sight is a realm Castiel does not frequent willingly. Many a human psychic has been lost to its deceptive neutrality, lulled into complacence by the ease of view in the pale zones and then trapped when they turned their gaze toward the shadows and the darkness that provided the balance and contrast to the plane. 

Being a member of the Host had its benefits, though, and one of them is this - as he turns his eyes inward and then outward again his mind fortifies itself against the pull of the inner sight's allure. 

What he finds is a city made of flat planes of grey.

Storm grey figures walk along ashen sidewalks surrounded by slate colored buildings, their edges blurring and smoking as they pass by each other. Bright white streaks draw his eye from the standard human shades to the loose network of angel tracks in the sky, their paths burning like comet's tails in their wake.

Below, in the deep-dark shadows of the buildings - so grey as to be black, and yet not - he can see the fading hand prints that denote _oblitus filii_ in the area. 

It is these that he chooses to follow.

At first glance the prints are indistinguishable from one another beyond anything but size, but the closer he looks the more fine detail he sees. There, a hand with six fingers, and there, one with too many knuckles to a finger. His eyes scan through each haphazard track, discarding and analyzing and moving on as quickly as his in between sight would let him. Too long, too short, too many fingers, not enough, stubby, long - he toils through them, tireless and heedless of the small specks of white light that dance around him. 

And then - there, five long, pianists fingers, claw tipped, smeared slightly in their drag against the wall. Where angels could not help but leave trails of light behind them, _oblitus filii_ were hopeless to stop the smattering of hand and foot marks that followed them. 

 The tracks in the immediate area are not fresh, their streaked impressions faded and pale in comparison to the more recent and darker grey prints around it.

Once he's locked onto the claw tipped tracks of his quarry all others faded into non-existence. He reaches out and brushes his fingers over the strongest one, watching with rapt attention as its edges light up with a pale blue glow.

Interesting.

The light spreads from one track to the next, leading him away from the alley and down the street in front of him, across the street and down several side paths. The glowing impressions turn abruptly up the face of a building, and in the Plane of First Sight they cannot be seen as he sees them. Invisible to the standard human eye, the tracks left by an _oblitus filii_ look like pieces of paper trapped in the glass and lit from within. Even the blue glow they emit is lost to moral sight, a thing that Castiel finds almost saddening, as it is truly beautiful and pure. 

A remnant of their total neutrality, he's sure, but something to be pondered at a less pressing moment.

He follows the trail up, over the glass and steel face of the office building and across the rooftop, caught for a moment when their light disappears, only to spot them on the roof top across the way.

Flight then? He turns, surveying his own band of light, the ribbons left by his kin, a single heavy purple band across the sky - Gabriel on the move - before spinning back and moving to the lip of the building. He looks down at a drop that would kill a human, several stories of metal and glass, and takes it all into consideration before he looks back at the blue tracks on the next roof. 

With a sigh he steps off the edge of the roof and drifts across, steps overlong as he bridges the gap between one building and the next.

The tracks continue in this manner for some time, across rooftops, down the sides of buildings, over streets and alleys - and through it all Castiel persists, determination fueling him onward. He has seen the downward spiral of the _oblitus filii_ far too frequently to be comfortable with it, but this is the first time he's seen one so dark in almost an age. It pulls at him in a way someone mortal might call obsession, or guilt, or even sympathy, and although they would not be entirely wrong they would not be entirely right. 

Castiel hunts the almost-black oblitus filii because the last one he let slip festered and ate itself until it became the black plague. 

He won't let it happen again. 

It takes the better part of the day and many looping turns before the tracks begin to grow a brighter blue, and by then Castiel is beginning to wonder if he shouldn't have waited and simply ambushed the _filii_ at its next attack.

But the prints grow heavy, oozing and clinging like tar, and the more he follows them the more he can feel the pressure of the spirit. He's tracing them around a building into an alley packed with dumpsters and garbage when it strikes him, fast and hard. A wave of intent washes of him, freezing him in place for a half beat before he's striding forward again, cautious but no less intent.

When he first rounds the corner he doesn't actively recognize the change in the environment beyond that it is suddenly very dark and very cold. As his sight adjusts to the oppressive shade in the lee of the dumpster he becomes aware of a heavy thrumming, like several synchronized heartbeats. 

What he sees brings him to a halt quicker than anything previously experienced during a hunt.

Over boxes and garbage, across one side of the dumpster and up the wall behind it stretches an expanse of living tar, its edges seething and twitching with artificial breath. A figure sits hunched in the middle of it, barely human in shape and form distorted by shadows cast by its great curved wings. grape fruit-sized yellow eyes stare out at him from the darkness, a wavering line of silver denoting its closed mouth.

They stare at each other for what may be hours, the animated shadows growing more and more tense the longer Castiel remains motionless. Castiel can feel his grace reacting to the power of the _filii_ , can feel the holy light radiating from his eyes even as the unclean will brightens the gaze of the would-be demon.

There's a moment when Castiel thinks that the forgotten one will attack him, its body a tense mass of hunched psychic intent, when a motion near its base catches both of their attentions.

A small grey kitten tumbles from the mass of shadows, stumbling forward on wobbly legs to rub its face against the toe of Castiel's shoe. It gazes up at him with wide blue eyes and releases an endearing mew. He's contemplating reaching down to caress it - even if the physical touch is little more than a brush of air against its fur - when the long fingered hand of the shadow reaches out and wraps its fingers around it, engulfing it in shade and will, carefully arranging its inch long talons so as to not hurt the cat.

The animal is lifted up and away, and in the half moment that the _oblitus filii_ takes to sequester the cat away Castiel can see a box of other tiny bodies, sleeping soundly despite the tension of their protector.

When the shadows close again and the kittens are hidden from sight the spirit turns to him, still wound tight, eyes lit by desperation and fear as well as vicious protectiveness. 

Castiel steps back, fades his grace, and bows low, neck exposed. He waits, one beat, two, before straightening.

When he looks at the place where the filii had been, both shade and box are gone. 

**Author's Note:**

> Although I got the 'Sastiel' prompt at ALA at the same time as the Destiel prompt, I didn't officially start writing this for a while, and then when I did the first thing I thought of was Demon!Sam ripping out somebodies teeth (I'd gotten my own set cleaned recently, and it was not fun). Then a whole story developed around that scene, and what Cas and Dean where doing, and it became this. I don't know if I'll continue it, but - it's here, and it's pretty, so! 
> 
> In Another Fandom: Having overcome my battle with POV changes and moved on to A DIFFERENT POV change, I am now toiling through what I wanted (and still want) to be long chapter, and not just because I've taken so long to update but because it's actually story imperative that it span a specific amount of time. 
> 
> So yeah - still working!


End file.
